Sapphire Toxic HD 5970 4GB Review

Introduction:

Back when the HD 5970 launched in November of 2009, it was the fastest video card on the planet. Fast forward almost 6 months and well, the HD 5970 is still the top dog when it comes to video cards. So what do you do to follow up the fastest video card on the planet? Well if you're Sapphire, you take the best and make it better. As ATI's largest partner, Sapphire has long been known as a source of high end graphics solutions that easily move to the top of the class when they receive the Toxic, Vapor-X or Atomic treatment. While I have not seen an Atomic video card since the HD 4890, the Toxic and Vapor-X cards have been making the rounds. The latest before this behemoth being the Toxic HD 5870 2GB that offered third party cooling and improved performance via higher clock speeds and additional frame buffer memory. Kind of the same story here, with the improvements made to the Toxic HD 5970 4GB. The HD 5970 is a stout card and Sapphire has made the Toxic even more robust with the addition of aftermarket cooling in the Arctic Cooling Xtreme HD 5970 as well as higher clock speeds. Lets see if the new kid has what it takes to move to the front of the line.

Closer Look:

The packaging for the Sapphire Toxic HD5970 4GB shows a dark figure on the metallic front panel. The front panel is chock full of information on the cards capabilities that include DirectX 11 and Windows 7 support, Full HD support via HDMI that includes 1080p and 7.1 sound, PCIe 2.1 compliance, Eyefinity readiness and the 4GB of GDDR5 memory on board that can only help with the large resolutions that an Eyefinity setup will run. An added bonus is the inclusion of two popular game titles: Dirt 2 and Modern Warfare 2. Strangely missing is the CrossfireX Logo, but you can be assured the card is capable. The rear panel defines the capabilities of the Toxic as well as a short synopsis of the cards abilities. On the bottom of the rear panel you can see Sapphire's commitment to the environment with the use of recyclable materials in the packaging as well as the long list of awards their products have earned.

The inner packaging is without information and is a plain cardboard box that houses the Toxic and its accessory bundle. The documentation and game keys are on top of the foam that protects the card from harm. The Toxic is housed in between two foam shells as well as being inside a buble wrap anti-static bag for added protection. The rest of the bundle is housed in a smaller box inside the package and is quite the bundle. Once you pull the card out, its size is evident by comparison to my old school cell phone.

The bundle that comes with the Toxic HD 5970 is pretty impressive. Not only do you get the standard stuff such as the manual, Crossfire bridge connection, driver disk and D-sub to DVI and HDMI to DVI adapters, but you get a couple other things that you do not normally see bundled with other GPUs. You get not one, but two very popular games (Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Dirt 2), a Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort connection, and the one thing that says use this card in an Eyefinity setup all over the place and active displayport to DVI adapter. The games and the active adapter alone are worth a nice amount of cash by themselves, but for roughly $1100, you should expect to get a few extras.

Seeing how the bundle shapes up I am sure the card will not disappoint.